


Rain in LA

by celli



Category: Alias
Genre: F/M, Jossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-05-10
Updated: 2002-05-10
Packaged: 2017-10-12 20:49:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celli/pseuds/celli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vaughn/Sydney smut and (being me) moodiness.</p><p>Spoilers: Nothing major. I'd say up to and including "The Solution" just to be on the safe side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Low Pressure System

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Most of this was written before "Rendevous," so you can consider it to take place in a mildly AU future. As always, much thanks to my beta readers--JenC, Lizbet, and Gail, who had never even seen the show before she read this for me. :)

_Low pressure systems have different intensities, with some producing a gentle rain while others produce hurricane force winds and a massive deluge..._

* * *

"It never rains in LA," Sydney said.

My head was on her shoulder, with one hand tracing the smooth skin of her side. "Sure it does. Once every ten years." I stopped on a scar that I think came from a knife wound the year before we met; my fingers skimmed back and forth over it.

I could feel her breath hitch on a laugh as I bumped over the scar. "Okay."

"Besides...I kind of like it." I did. It was a soft rain, no harsh wind or thunder accompanying it, and it was a constant percussion against the roof of my apartment. "It reminds me of Seattle."

She went still for just a second, but I'm obsessed with her. I noticed. "Oh."

"Sydney?" I propped myself up on one elbow to look at her. "What?"

"Nothing!" She smiled brightly at me, but--I mentioned the obsession, right?--I immediately recognized Fake Work Smile #4.

"Sydney."

She sighed. "Really. Just--I've never been to Seattle. I've been to Kenya and Uzbekistan, but never Washington State."

"Lots of people have never been to Washington."

"I was accepted to a couple of universities there. But I wanted to go to UCLA because my mother did."

There was a long pause while we both worked through the implications of that. Never being recruited by SD-6, never meeting Danny, never meeting me...I laid my head back on her shoulder. "Seattle's nice," I said into her collarbone. "But I like LA. Rain or no rain."

Another long pause, while she toyed with my fingers underneath the covers. "Vaughn?" she said finally.

"Yes?" I thought briefly about nibbling on her shoulder. We had at least an hour before Francie was expecting her back at the apartment, and I--

"Do you miss Alice?"

"Wha--what?" No nibbling. Possibly ever.

She shifted a little, dislodging me from her shoulder. "Do you miss her?" _Do you miss your old life,_ she didn't say.

"Sometimes," I said after a long pause. "She was...special."

More shifting. "It must be nice to have someone outside of work. I mean, someone who knows what you do but isn't part of it."

I smiled. "Did I ever tell you how I met Alice?"

"No..."

"At work."

"What?"

"She was a new computer tech in our office. Unfortunately, her first day was the same day my new secretary started."

"Assistant," Sydney corrected. She's never met Donna, my current assistant, but they seem to have developed a bond anyway.

"Sorry, assistant."

"And you thought Alice was your new--?"

"Yes," I said hastily. "And it didn't go well."

"What did you do?"

I rolled over and buried my head in the pillow. "Mmmmf."

Sydney was giggling. She poked at my shoulder. "Vaughn, what did you _do_ to the poor girl?"

I rolled back over, trying to hide a grin. "Poor girl? Why do you assume she got the worst of it?"

Her eyes were dancing. "What happened?"

I heaved a long sigh. "Let me just say first that I was having a really bad day, and I'd had a couple of awful sec--assistants."

"Yeah, uh-huh."

"They were!"

She lifted an eyebrow. "Go on. You were having a bad day..."

"I'd left this long detailed note about how to work the coffeemaker." That set off another round of giggles. "I like good coffee, should I apologize for it?"

An eloquent silence followed. My views on properly made coffee are oft-

repeated--and oft-mocked.

" _So._ I walk into my office and there's a cup of coffee on the desk, and a woman sitting at my computer. What am I supposed to think?"

Sydney was shaking with suppressed laughter. "The wrong thing, I assume."

"I took one drink--and let me tell you, it was awful coffee. Sugar in it up to--" I held my hand up to my eyebrows. "It was _bad_ coffee, Syd, I'm telling you."

"And so you said..."

I sighed again. Then I said in the flattest monotone I could muster, "This coffee tastes horrible. I thought you knew the way I liked it. Now go get me a new cup and make it quick."

Sydney exploded with laughter. I covered my face with both hands.

"Oh, God," Sydney said after a moment. "I think I broke something laughing. You didn't say it like that, though, right?" She pried my hands from my eyes.

"No, as I recall there were more exclamation points and...you know...swear words." Sydney started laughing again, so I rushed through the rest of the story. "And of course it was her coffee...and my brand new Pentium computer ran slower than a calculator for six months. Alice was good at revenge."

Sydney's giggles had subsided to the occasional snuffle. She wiped her eyes. "So how did you end up dating Alice? I know the CIA has...rules..." Rules we were currently violating by being naked in my bed.

"She got a job working for a local insurance agency. Much better money, and apparently cranky insurance adjusters are easier to deal with than cranky intelligence officers. So I sent her flowers and a bag of coffee beans..." I shrugged. "And the rest is history."

"How long were you together?"

"A year, year and a half."

"And you miss her."

"Sometimes," I repeated. I knew what I wanted to say, but I struggled for the words. "I miss *her.* I don't miss being with her."

I moved to kiss her, but she dropped back onto her pillow and kept her face turned away from me. The anger came more quickly than the laughter had, but I closed my eyes against the blame I wanted to heap on her. She never moved as I grabbed my jeans off the floor and stalked away.

My apartment has an opening that only an optimist or a real estate agent would call a balcony. I stood on it anyway, letting the rain soak my hair and my jeans and run coolly between my toes.

 _Yeah,_ I thought. _I miss her. I miss being the focus of someone's attention--is that so bad? I miss hearing "Michael" from a woman's lips. Damn it, with Alice I would say goodbye to her in the morning and know she'd still be alive when I saw her that night. Don't I get to miss that?_

Some days, I try so hard not to push my feelings on Sydney, I'm as flat and falsely sweet as Alice's coffee. I want to scream at her when she calls me "Vaughn" in that cool voice, when she comes back from a mission with bruises and cuts--and someday it's going to be a bullet wound, if my nightmares are any indication.

I walked back to the bed, pushing my dripping hair away from my forehead. I squished a little when I sat on the bed, and Sydney looked up at me with a tentative smile on her face.

"I have to be back in a little while," she said.

"Not too soon, I hope." I bent and kissed the side of her neck, and she shivered where my wet skin touched hers. Her arms came around my neck.

"No, not too soon."


	2. Warm Front

_...the cold air ahead of a warm front at the surface must retreat before warm air can move in. Sometimes, cold air is very stubborn and hard to move, which slows the warm front down..._

* * *

I could see Michael standing on his balcony. He looked beautiful...and miserable.

He left Alice. Because of me. For me? He avoided his friends so he wouldn't have to lie about the time he spent with me. Of all the sacrifices he'd made since I'd known him--the people, the thought of them, scared me the most.

He gave up the people he depended on so that I could depend on him. How warped and dysfunctional and, dammit, _Vaughn,_ is that?

He walked back in. I watched the water drip down his arms. I used to have fantasies about those arms, and I'll never tell him that when he rolls up his CIA-sanctioned shirtsleeves I lose track of whatever conversation we're having.

He sat on the bed, looking down at me. I tried to smile at him. "I have to be back in a little while." _Great, Sydney. That ought to inject a little romance into the--_

"Not too soon, I hope." His lips were on my neck, and he leaned more firmly into me. The water on his skin made it stick to mine, and I had a brief image of the outline of his body burned onto me.

"No, not too soon," I said through the heat building in my throat. My arms were around him--although I didn't remember moving them--and the rain made my hands slip in and out of his hair.

I kissed the top of his head as he moved down to my breast. He smelled like rain. He smelled wonderful.

His mouth closed around one nipple. I bit down on the stream of encouragement trying to come from my mouth. I learned a long time ago--sometime between Noah and Danny--not to talk unless I was in control, and I was definitely not--

I felt his hands slide down beneath my hips and turn me until my legs fell off the bed. I pushed up to an almost-sitting position and saw him kneel between my legs. He was still wearing his wet jeans. I was helplessly aware that he was staring at my naked body.

Then he looked up at me, and I thought about what he was seeing--eyes wide, mouth open, hair spilling down my back, knees next to his shoulders.

He smiled. I watched him lean forward and press an open-mouthed kiss to the center of my stomach. His hands tightened on my hips; I dropped my hands to cover his. I lay back and closed my eyes. The tremors started somewhere inside my bones even before he lowered his mouth to me again.

* * *

"Sydney?"

I was still lying the wrong way across the bed. Michael's arms came around me from behind.

"Sydney, are you--"

"I'm sorry." I squeezed my eyes shut until I could see rainbows behind them, but the tears still escaped. "I should go."

"You're crying." He had that helpless male tone that would have made me laugh under other conditions. "I made you cry."

"No."

"Sydney, please--" I opened my eyes and saw the panicked look on his face. "Don't cry because of me. For work, for your dad--I never wanted to make you cry."

"You didn't make me cry. It's just--" I fought, but the sobs were coming faster and faster. "I'm so, so sorry, Michael. For everything."

I heard his breath catch, and he pulled me up until my face was pressed to his chest. He let me cry until I trailed off into little sniffles while he smoothed my hair back and talked nonsense into my ear.

When I was all finished, he'd somehow managed to get both of us under the covers. I twisted my head so I could look at him. "Thanks."

He smiled a little. " _I'm_ not sorry, okay, Sydney? I'm--I'm just not."

He pulled me back against him. I could hear him breathing and above that, the rain. I rested my head on his shoulder and told myself I believed him.


End file.
